The Two Camps

By the end of medical school, most students fall into one of two camps.

The first are the budding surgeons: practical, hands on people that like to get busy. The medical problem is usually straightforward but takes great skill and finesse to rectify. It's a fast paced world of acting first and pre-empting disaster. Once the abdomen is opened there's no knowing what you might find. Patients rapidly destabilise. Plans are changed at the last moment.

In the other camp are the budding physicians. They would rather use their brains than their hands. They have a knack for juggling complex diseases and medical problems often involving multiple organ systems and pathologies. It's a rob Peter to pay Paul game of balances and compromises. It is seldom straightforward.

Of the two, I seem to fall in with the latter.

World Vision recently opened a project in the Luweero area and decided that all their sponsor children would be screened for hernias and have them repaired. I'm not entirely sure why they chose hernias. Perhaps there's a big hernia problem in the Luweero area. Armed with pen, paper, chappatti and calipers, a small task force was sent out from Kiwoko hospital to survey the proposed project. Children of all ages and sizes were lined up and processed - a production line of pint-sized African abdomens being prodded and pressed.

This happened to coincide with my week in theater. Operating Theatre in Kiwoko bears a passing resemblance to theaters back home but the likeness isn't overwhelmingly striking. For someone who prefers X-ray meetings and pharmacokinetics to actual operating, the difference is particularly pronounced. Plain simple soap, rather than povidine, is used for the 'scrub'. Ether is used as an anaesthetic. The ventilator consists of a man pumping a bellows. There is no positive pressure air circulation. No diathermy to halt bleeding. An eggbeater is used to drill in the skeletal pins. At times, the lights flicker on and off. During the week we ran out of sterile operating gowns but the show did go on using normal, unsterilized clothes.

Consequently they have developed a complex algorithm of thou shalts and thou shalt nots to prevent contamination.

It was amongst this museum of surgical relics that I met Moses. Unlike most of the local staff, he is not Bagandan. He comes from a more remote tribe in the untamed North. Consequently he can't act as translator during my pre-op assessments. Drawn together by our mutual lack of Lugandan, we formed an instant bond.

He patiently demonstrates the correct procedure to maintain a sterile field in the midst of non-sterility. After scrubbing I touch several things I shouldn't have and promptly return to the scrub bay. Once I finally make it past the scrub trolley, I manage to drape the drape over the wrong part of the patient. It gets turfed straight to the sluice. Trying to find a task in theater I can't stuff up, he shows me how to use gauze to stop bleeding at points in the

operation. First you gather the sterile gauze with the tweezers. Then you dip them in saline, swivel on the stool, move away from the scrub tray and drop them gently into the patients abdomen. With great skill and dexterity I transfer three swabs from the tray to the floor and one from the tray to my crotch. Moses smiles gently in a way that suggests that I, who was in every way to blame, was in no way to blame.

And so I crawl back to the comfort of the medical clinic, ego only moderatley bruised. I know where my talents lie or rather where they don't. The truth is, I'm something of a liability in theatre

Ugandans love...

...anything that's not Ugandan.

Cellphones. If I had to devise a national emblem to replace the conspicuously absent crested crane, it would be the trademark yellow sheds of MTN. The most widely used provider in Uganda has cleverly combined the one-colour promotion gimmick behind The Warehouse with monopolising the colour also used by the National Resistance Movement -the only political party legally allowed in Uganda. Convenient. You can't pass a village in Uganda without seeing modified 'dairies' boldly displaying their MTN status. These stores dot the countryside more plentifully than the fruit merchants that flag down passing cars to thrust their wares through the window. The Kiwoko township boasts one open-air butchery, a tailer's shop, a municipal centre, a petrol station and 5 specialist cellphone stores. You may not have electricity, running water, or even food for the week but with MTN you're never out of touch.

Coke. The most successful advertising campaign in the world. Is there anywhere on earth that escapes the contoured hobble-skirt bottle, and it's vile grinning santa claus? Decidedly out of place amongst the converted shacks peddling wares to passersby, a bottle costs between 500 and 1500 shillings depending on whether you have empty bottles to exchange. It is sold exclusively in glass bottles, none of this disposable plastic. Each morning trucks arrive at the hospital cafe - which is the collection of modified shacks selling shoes, bags, meat, chappatti and other goods, many and various, that have found it quite profitable to set up outside the hospital gate - unload crates of fresh coke and reload crates of empty bottles. As distasteful as I find this globalised caffeine fix, I must admit it's a welcome taste of home amongst the alien landscape of Luweero.

Vuvuzelas. Virtually unheard of prior to the world cup, these brightly coloured trumpets have suddenly become quintessentially African, continent-wide. Originating from the Nguni dialect, the word simply means to make a 'voo-voo' sound. And make such a sound it surely does. Leaning from the back of a motorbike, a young Bagandan man blows 120 dB, coincidentally the threshold of pain at 1 metre, towards passing traffic. People use them for all sorts of reasons: political rallies, demonstrations, parties, the pure joy of blowing a vuvuzela for no good reason, and, of course, for football. Two weekends ago, the Uganda Cranes beat Angola 3-0 and half of Kampala was making voo-voo sounds well into the wee small hours.

Motorbikes, or Boda bodas line each street. A remnant from the colonial era, where they were the only mechanised transport that could navigate the rainforest with much ease. Motorbikes would be used to ferry troops between border posts, literally from Boda to Boda. I'm still not completely certain whether they are officially public transport here or whether any old Joe with a motorbike spies a passing mzungu and assumes they need a lift and stops to offer their services. Either way they're awfully convenient once your bartering skills get honed.

'Where you going Mzungu?'

'Luweero'

'Luweero? That be 5000 shilling'

'5000? No. No don't be silly. It's only round the corner'

'Oh no. No no. It is far. Far for me'

'It's always 3000 to Luweero'

'No no. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Never 3000'

'But I paid 3000 this morning'

'Ah, but my friend, petrol has gone up'

'What? It hasn't gone up since this morning'

' Ah but it's just started raining mzungu'

' Haha. Good point. 5000 it is'.

Barack Obama. Which country is he president of again? His profile and slogans are printed on tee-shirts, bags, coasters, cups. His trademark grin greets passersby on a daily basis. Change you can believe in, with populist appeal you can't. Odd when you consider Uganda doesn't seem to be America-obsessed like parts of Asia and South America. You could be forgiven for thinking he is actually Ugandan, and doing the whole US president thing just for kicks. If the Whitehouse won't have him, he could certainly make a small fortune doing children's parties in East Africa.

Mzungu. There was never a big slave trade in Uganda like in Ghana and Ivory Coast. There was no large-scale expropriation of land like in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Consequently there doesn't seem to be the resentment of European influence that characterises vast swathes of Africa. While Ugandans are quick to typecast you as mzungu, there doesn't appear to be any malice behind it. They're simply stating the obvious. One can not, as a white man, be alone for long in Uganda. They line up to pat you on the back and high five you. Children wave excitedly from across the street. A toddlers face stares in sheer horror and toddles off to cry behind her mothers legs as the strange white monsters saunter past. 'Look', a young girl tries not to stare as she whispers to her younger sisters, 'a mzungu'. Everywhere people stop and stare. Mind you, last week I saw a group of mzungu in the old Kampala taxi park. I stopped and stared.

Jesus. Or in particular western modes of christianity. Traditional Bugandan weddings feature the bride in bold, bright colours and headpieces. Ugandan christian weddings, of course, feature the bride in white. The hospital chapel, amongst a Bagandan community that speaks almost exclusively Lugandan, sings english songs – Hillsongs and Parachute festival. Sometimes they are translated into Lugandan, sometimes just left in english, God's language. Authentic african first names are also absent replaced with good, solid, catholic names. Joseph. Patrick. Moses. Margaret. Esther. The names of businesses also bear witness to their zeal. There's 'Glory be to God' photos and videos. 'Jesus saves' motorbike repairs and ''Trust in Jesus' health insurance. Often, the subtlety of english significance is lost. There's 'God almighty is our sauce' restaurant and even the misnamed 'St Adolfs hostel for mzungu' and the 'Twin Towers internet cafe'.

The English Premier League. Forget the African Cup of Nations. Man U and Arsenal is where it's at. One of the first things I was asked on arrival in Uganda was who 'my team' was. I don't know really. The Blackcaps? Last weekend in Kampala there were 2 deaths and several arrests after a fight broke out between groups of fans supporting 'their' team. Even football riots aren't unheard of. Liverpool fans rumbling with Blackpool. Aston Villa vs Chelsea. Meanwhile the Ugandan super league struggles to draw crowds.

So there's this prayer meeting at the hospital and an announcement is made calling for church notices. A young man stands at the back and reads out the latest EPL results. Most importantly, it seems, Liverpool drew 2 – 2 with Sunderland and Everton narrowly avoided relegation. The congregation murmurs their approval amidst prayers of thanks and supplication.

The Toyota Hiace. Rivalling the cellphone as the official emblem of Uganda, a national fleet of reconditioned Hiaces keep Uganda running. Officially designated as 'taxi's' or matatus they function as a cross between a kiwi bus and an airport shuttle. They leave from the big Kampala taxi park bearing a sign for a certain destination. Mbarara. Mbale. Gulu. Luweero. Kiwoko. It leaves once all the seats are taken and fares negotiated. As you pass paedestrians on the side of the rode, the conductor calls the destination loudly through the window. The passersby either nod or shake their heads and depending on the response the taxi flings open the doors and hauls the new passengers in. They are licensed to carry 14 passengers, which means on the average ride from Kampala to Luweero you might be sitting with around 23 or 24, plus or minus a few chickens on your lap. Traffic police do a quick head count as the taxis roll past the checkpoints and pull most of them over. A few shillings quietly slipped in with the registration papers usually sorts out this problem efficiently enough.

Chappatti and samosa. Do they even reailse it's not Ugandan? Hindu temples dominate the Kampala skyline. Billboards promote Fortune cooking oil, just perfect for the perfect chappatti. At each matatu stop, street vendors pile up t the taxis windows and thrust their chappatti to prospective customers. It's a relic from the British East India Company I assume. Indian workers imported from the subcontinent to serve as beaurocrats and administrators in East Africa. Someone that knew how to run the English system but could survive the environment better than the ex-pats. They got an unceremonially dismissal by Idi Amin in the 80s but left part of their culture behind. Now, it appears, bollywood and tikkha masala are as Ugandan as Toyotas and Coke.

Don't be silly mzungu

Like astronomical distances and geological timespans, poverty statistics cannot be reasonably comprehended. I can't grasp 328 million Africans living on less than US $1.25 a day with any more clarity than the 40 million miles to alpha centauri or

the 4.5 billion years it took the earth to form from molten magma. The decimal places confuse me. I lose my way among the zeros. The figure's are meaningless, numbers on a page. I just can't conceptualise them. They aren't real.

I struggle even to fathom the local life expectancy of 46 years. That Africa contains 24% of the worlds HIV/Tb and cancer burden and yet 3% of the global health workforce. Or that Uganda spends two thirds (47 million US of 75 million US) of it's developmental assistance to repay debt to the developed world.

But what I can understand is the patient in the bed in front of me. The family that walked 3 days to attend clinic. And the mother that must decide whether to allow her child to stay in hospital or to return to the field and beat millet lest the rest of the family starve.

The United Nation's measure feast or famine according to the Human Development Index. It's a system that combines life expectancy, maternal and child mortality, literacy, number of doctors per capita and average income to sort nations into developed, developing, and least-developed countries.

Norway tops the list followed by Australia. Niger holds the wooden spoon in 182^nd place. New Zealand weighs in at a healthy 20, just pipping the UK at 21. Uganda is relegated to 157^th, up 1 place from last year, but still losing to even Bangladesh, PNG, and Sudan.

The much bandied slogans that charity must begin at home, of New Zealand being a third world country and having much 'need' now seem like a bad-taste joke. New Zealand just doesn't have this kind of poverty.

Yet at times I seem the only one more than mildly alarmed.

The conversation at the guest house turns to it occasionally. Murmured contrasts with life in Britain or NZ. There's fleeting indignation of course. Awkward silences when the elephant in the room is recognised. But many of my fellow boarders have been to SE Asia or the Phillipines, and p

overty has a sensitising effect. Once you've seen it once, you've seen it all.

The doctors, too, are consumate professionals; here to diagnose and prognosis.

The student nurses are learning their trade. Studying textbooks religiously and quiz

zing the doctors on the finer points of physiology.

Am I the sole child declaring the emperor naked?

And the Ugandans? Well the Ugandans have their own lives to live. They have floors to sweep and crops to plant and bodas to race and parents to please and children to rear and dance moves to learn and football games to win and spouses to find. Life is for living and celebrating. They haven't the time or energy to bother with the nasty business of poverty. Do they even notice?

You'd think they'd have the decency to at least act appalled?

I am reviewing a child's notes while one of the student nurses interprets.

Any pain? Fever? Feeding well? Bowel and bladder working? Post-natal depression? The nurse looks confused at this last query

.

She doesn't understand. So I repeat myself. She still doesn't get it. Again, only slightly louder. I feign sadness and tears. She shakes her head quizzically. Don't be silly mzungu.

Eventually I find an old medical textbook and turn to the relevant pages. Her eyes are wide as she learns about this exotic, foreign disease.

Is there depression in Uganda? I suppose there must be. There must be Ugandan suicides too. But like the absent street names, unstated taxi fares and deleterious effects of destitution itself, it must be subliminal. Hidden. Lost somewhere between their 'very welcomes' and their cheshire cat smiles.

But the conditions and statistics themselves don't lie. They parade unashamedly from each village shack and each hospital death.

I have a constant knot in the pit of my stomach. At times I'm physically nauseous.

By rights I shouldn't be surprised. I've read books on aid and development, spoken with

missionaries, watched countless news reels, read many newspapers.

And I never once really doubted them. They always seemed true. But now I'm confronted with reality rather than truth. And, as Camus put it, the human mind cannot bear very much reality.

I find myself wondering what spiritual games and mental tricks

I'll have to invent for myself should I do this for any great length of time.

You Are Very Welcome

The Ki-swahili word Mzungu, doesn't mean 'white man' as I originally thought. They have some other word for that. Rather Mzungu translates as 'fast walker'. When Europeans first arrived during the great scramble for Africa, it wasn't their skin colour that made them stand out. It was their constant activity. They had agendas to achieve. Businesses to run and empires to administer. They had not time for idle chit chat, frivolities, or pleasantries.

Ugandan's, in contrast, are never in a hurry. Why have an official start time for a meeting? It's much easier to just wait till everyone arrives. Why get bogged down with goals, targets and aspirations? Life will just pass you by all the quicker. The aim is not the destination but the journey.

This flows on to other areas as well. On introduction to an Ugandan, the response is usually 'you are very welcome'. To guests and family alike. And over here one believes it too. The greeting is so ubiquitous I've inadvertently adopted it. Why just yesterday, I was very welcome for the 17^th time as I set up the equipment for draining a haemoperitoneum. Blood in the abdomen from yet another Boda-Boda accident. The patient and I exchange the usual pleasantries And it hits me. I'm very welcome as I prepare to thrust a 14 gauge needle into his abdomen.

Yet before I arrived Uganda was synonymous with violence in my mind. Somali militants and the LRA and Idi Amin, and child soldiers, and hijacked Israeli planes and last kings of Scotland.

It's certainly not how I've found the average Ugandan and the contrast is striking. They are gentle and softly spoken. They laugh all the time. They don't raise their voice. They don't shout or swear. At times I wonder whether they hold opinions with any conviction. They give way constantly. They are never the victims. They certainly don't stand up and demand their rights. And they always say please and thank-you.

How could such a people be garnished with chronic war and brutality? It doesn't make sense. The more I experience, the more two and two start to equal five.

A number of commentators have suggested it's precisely this mild demeanour that predisposes them to exploitation by malevolent dictators, that the meek don't always inherit the earth. I wonder if there's a hint of truth to this.

So I try to piece together the history.

Picture this.

It is the first year AD, and a group of sojourners prepare to leave their home in modern Nigeria. This will prove a watershed moment in African history.

As Mary and Joseph make a bumpy journey to Bethlehem , the party sets off. Leaving West Africa, they push south through the Sahel corridor. No one knows exactly why they go, though I guess the usual suspects could be considered. Famine. Drought. Overpopulation. Perhaps they were evicted by invaders. Perhaps they were colonialists bent on southern domination, sticking their flag in the moon.

But whatever the reason they push on, eventually arriving on the shores of Lake Victoria. And here the delegation splits and goes two ways.

Some push southwest and encounter the pygmy foragers living in the Rwenzori mountains separating central Africa from the Congo. With time they interbreed, combining the sturdy Negro frame with the petite pygmy skeleton. The heritages fuse and they give rise to Uganda's southern tribes. The Basoga. The Banyoro. The Ankole. And, of course, the most populous Baganda from which modern Uganda gets it's name.

The others head north into the Ethiopian highlands through southern Sudan. Here they intermarry with the Nilotics. Pastoralists that survive on the annual flooding of the Nile. Descendants of Nubian nobles and merchants from Punt, God's land, they are long, lanky warriors. With time they become Uganda's northern tribes. The Acholi. The Kakwa. The Arua.

What started as a single group now gradually gets forged into disparate peoples. The Southerners are true Bantu. Combining Rome's technology with the pygmy ingenuity, they create a civilisation. A complex social and political structure develops. Urbanisation occurs. Economic surpluses build. The population expands. Education and the arts thrive.

The northerners on the other hand hold fast to their pastoralist heritage. They seldom settle in one place. They stick to their villages. They embrace a warrior caste. Power remains with local chieftains. They remain rural and wild at heart.

The two live in mutually satisfying hostility for many years, gradually entrenching a pattern that seems to continue to the present day. The Sneeches with stars deride those without.

This tale could be told the world over really. But how did they both come to be part of the same country?

Howareyoumzungu?!

The average haemoglobin level in men is 135 – 175 g/L. Women are allowed to be a little lower, to account for menstruation, but ideally they shouldn't dip below 115, or they start to feel run down and constantly tired. Haemoglobin carries oxygen around the body and so less haemoglobin means less oxygen and more tiredness. There's a constant struggle to retain one of the earth's most abundant elements. The human body just seems to have a design flaw in that department. Much below 90 g/L, and symptoms set in – kept at bay perhaps a myriad of iron tablets and injections. In New Zealand, people below 80 are generally given blood transfusions.

The haemoglobin level amongst the patients at Kiwoko varies between 20 and 50, occasionally a 70 or 80 is recorded. At times they get so low, I didn't realise they were compatible with life. Every now and then, someone comes in with signs of heart failure. Not because there's anything wrong their heart at all but because it gets such scant oxygen from anaemia it has to work overtime, filling double and triple shifts just to cover the rent. I don't think I've seen a patient yet with a normal New Zealand level. I've given up even including anaemia as a diagnosis.

I mentioned this phenomenon to Dr Rory Wilson, the medical superintendent of the hospital. A softly-spoken Irishman in middle age, he has been in Uganda and Kiwoko in particular for many years now. He puts it down to a combination of malaria (mosquito-supplied parasite's that burst open red blood cells with a voracious appetite), malnutrition (which needs no explanation) and genetic mutations in the red cells themselves - gifts of biochemistry that happen to interfere with the parasites life-cycle. In a cruel twist of irony, they also predispose to anaemia.

As you drive out of Kampala, the urban sprawl eventually subsides, the tar-sealed road gradually becomes metal then pot-holed red dirt, and the houses change from brick and tin city apartments, through thatched huts and finally to the clay-baked shacks that comprise rural Uganda. And then you see them.

Working in the field from day-break to dusk. Manually chopping the ground. Leading cattle to more fertile fields. I see two siblings till the field. The brother gently turn the dirt. His sister bends down to sow the seed. Row after row, field after field. T here are adults around working too of course, but the vast quantity needing to be harvested mean the children must help. Perhaps they attend school during the morning and work the field in the afternoon. I really can't say. The patents might earn a wage if they moved to the city. But the country seems to be their life. And unemployment means subsistence farming is the most realistic alternative. I guess Uganda never really industrialised.

The women sit in front of their houses, scrubbing clothes and laying them on the field to dry. There are no washing machines here. No clothes driers. Not even running water on tap.

The children throw down their rakes and hoes as you ride past. They bounce up and down and wave their hands in the air excitedly. Howareyoumzungu?! Howareyoumzungu?! They chant in a single syllable.

And for the life of me, I can't fathom how they do it. I can't understand how they keep up such an arduous lifestyle while running a haemoglobin that'd make western doctors queasy.

I guess it's reasonable to assume not everyone is as anaemic as the hospital patients. They are, after all, in hospital for a reason. But it also seems reasonable to assume they run on a tank far lower than 'normal'. Malaria often runs a subacute course. Malnutrition seems an almost universal phenomenon. And genetics are genetics, once you're born with a variant blood cell that's your lot for life.

Labour amongst fatigue. Joy amongst toil. Energy amongst deficit. I find it a fitting tribute to Uganda so far.

You don't have Morphine?

I begin work on female medical. My first patient was admitted overnight and I'm to review her progress. I tighten my tie, gather my stethoscope, don my white coat and head over to the ward. It bears no resemblance at all to a NZ hospital. All the patients are in one room. There is no curtain separating cubicles. There's not a computer in sight. In fact, none of the equipment looks like it was made after the 80's. The floor is dirty and unswept. In the Ugandan mind, cleanliness is most decidedly not next to godliness.

A few student nurses from the neighbouring nursing school bustle around to see the new mzungu doctor in action. I glance over the patients notes. There's no . No way to learn about her previous admissions. No records of past clinic attendances. I see the blood test results scribbled in the front corner with a pencil. She's grossly anaemic but then everyone here is. There doesn't seem to be a measure of vital signs anywhere. I ask for some ibuprofen for pain relief and fluconazole for her fungal infection. The nurse hasn't heard of them. How about ketoconazole then? No. Morphine? No.

Clearly I have much to learn.

Nothing Escapes the Red

Uganda is a juxtaposition of extremes and contrasts. It's a land where one drinks hot tea to cool down, buses leave once all the seats are taken, and straight men hold hands in public to show they're not gay.

Giant gutters, 2 foot deep, line each street to drain the sewage and storm water that spill forth from over 20 million people living in the space of Auckland. Occasionally it spills into the street amongst the children at play. Goats, chickens and bovine species I can't define roam the streets, interrupting the steady stream of cars and bodas. Hardwood planks, roughly nailed together, serve as dwellings. Nothing here is new. Signs are hand-painted and stenciled The shop fronts are aged. Rubbish lines the streets. Giant Malibu storks circle overhead, occasionally swooping down to feed off the garbage. And the dirt, oh the dirt. Thick red clay that clings to whatever it comes across. Nothing in Uganda escapes it except, perhaps, the Ugandans themselves. They always look pristine. The tropical sun gleams off their sweat-basted skin, giving it a luminous glow. Amongst the old and the tatty and the dull and the drab, they positively shine.

They dress impeccably. Business shirts an

d dress shoes for the men. Women in brightly coloured dresses. In my khaki cargo pants and a dull grey tee-shirt, I look decidedly scruffy. How do they keep themselves so immaculate? If your house and belongings cannot escape the brunt of the African sun and dirt, perhaps all you can possibly clean is yourself.

All state personnel carry guns. Usually semi-automatic types slung casually over their shoulders, as if they're an inconvenience. Police mainly. But also traffic wardens, security guards, and. Why, you can't pass a block or two in Kampala or any rural town in the south without seeing a couple of cops sitting watching idly, rifle over the shoulder. Sometime a Ute drives past, the trailers loaded with half a dozen armed police. They don't seem to be rushing to any great emergency, just transferring from part of town to another. Is Uganda really violent enough to justify such precautions?

The hospital itself has 4 wards: male, female, children's, and maternity. Male and female each being split into medical and surgical. It's a privately run venture, partly funded though an Irish NGO and partly through the patients themselves. Each patient must have an attendant, usually a family member that does their washing, prepares their meals, and attends to their bathing. No attendant, no admission. Nothing here is free. The hospital grounds are full of such attendants washing clothes by hand, feeding children, On top of a nightly bed fee, a patient must pay for all drugs, diagnostic tests, and procedures. Even examination gloves are included in the broken down balance.

I can't help but imagine the uproar if such a system were introduced back home.

Yes?

'I was born in Uganda', Hassin was positively beaming. 'I grew up in Uganda, and I will die in Uganda, yes?'. He slaps the steering wheel emphatically and throws his head back in exaggerated laughter. Like most Ugandans, he is dressed smartly in a bright purple dress shirt and formal pants. His shoes are impeccably shined Swerving occasionally on the red dirt road to avoid pot holes, goats and the occasional small child, we bump along from Entebbe to Kampala. Every few minutes he pulls his handkerchief from his pocket and mops his shaved head. The humidity can be overpowering.

Two guards sit slouched against a watchpost, sheltering from the afternoon sun. Their uniforms are something from a time capsule. Colonial-era not modern combat fatigues, they look like something from a costume party. One has his cap pulled down over his face, the other an AK-47 couched casually across his lap. At his feet lies a bazooka. Not in immediate reach but close enough Clearly there was no immediate need for such high-power ordinance.

'This is your first time to Uganda, yes?'. I nod, watching him grin from ear to ear. 'Ah you have come to the right place, yes? We have the best. The people, the best culture, the best food, yes?' His laughter is uncontrollable. And he's not joking. Luscious fruit trees line the street, their produce being offered by street-side vendors. Despite the obvious poverty, people everywhere have smiles on their faces.

I'm struck by the massive number of boda bodas, small motorbikes lacking a speedo or any reasonable suspension. They fill the streets, zipping in and out of the traffic that frequently gets gridlocked. No one wears a helmet. Women always ride side-saddle. The sides of the road are filled with young men loitering on their bikes in groups. Clearly,it seems anyone who is anyone owns a boda.

The West has no Smell

Uganda smells overpoweringly of a zoo crossed with a mechanics garage. I shouldn't be surprised really, a common comment from returning travellors is that the West has no smell. But all of Uganda smells strongly and seems rather reluctant to leave. The most it offers is a brief reprieve. Sitting in my inn room outside Entebbe, I get engrossed in a book on the war in the north. Distracted, I walk to the window to glimpse the horizon and Uganda comes in to greet me.

It's inescapable. Not that it's a particularly unpleasant smell, mind. A mixture of manure, petroleum, sweat and burning rubbish define a nation that hasn't known true peace since independence and probably some time before then. It smells real and unveneered. It doesn't try and perfume over the reality of life in East Africa. It's the smell of a people that struggles hard everyday for mere existence.

The Dance of Uganda

The honest amongst us line up to be processed through the X-ray. The rest just stream through customs and into the lobby. No one appears to stop them. Large posters bearing inscriptions like 'Pay your taxes, help rebuild Uganda', and 'A true Ugandan cares for his neighbour' do little to exhort the throng to higher duty. A short, African youth in his early twenties is stopping passengers apparently at random. 'Is there a bomb in there?', he asks one bearded man who shakes his head vigorously while his two sons look on. 'Very good, this way this way'. He directs him to skip the scanner and into country. No one is hurrying. There's no point. This is the dance of Uganda, and no amount of hurrying will get you anywhere any faster. You must just keep the tempo. We dance our way from the luggage retrieval and hand our passes to a middle-aged woman with short-braided hair.

Without warning the lights blink out and the scanner stops. Everything is in pitch darkness, but there no public dismay like you might expect back home. The chatter of incoming pasengers continues. Families continue to embrace their loved ones. People continue to push their way past customs, without so much as an acknowledgement of the officials. It was as if nothing had happened. Evidently power cuts aren't that unusual, even in the sole international airport of the country. The dance continues as if led by a drummer not dependant on electricity or procedure or any of the traditional beat keepers of the West. Just as suddenly the lights flick on again. Eventually the man taps Pete on the shoulder, 'What's in there?'. 'Medical supplies. For Kibale hospital'. Inpatiently he gestures us to the declaration desk and moves on down the line of incomers. A similarly disinterested woman asks a few questions. Where are they for again? And for what? She doesn't open the box but directs us straight through the main gates.

We step through the gates and into the country.

Into Africa

Long-haul flying skews your perception of reality. After the first dozen hours, they all blend into one another. Sitting here watching mile after mile of Saudi desert go rushing by, I lose an hour, gain an hour. One can think a lot of thoughts in that time.

If you go back far enough, we're all African. Granted, some have a more immediate kinship than others. But even the most Caucasian of us descended from that that small contingent that squeezed through the Sahara and into Europe all those years ago. It was in the Great Rift Valley, that we separated from our other primate brethren. That was our Eden. It was there that we first came down from the trees, learned to stand on two legs and free our hands for more useful things (like making weapons). If you trace the lineages of mitochondrial DNA, they all converge on a single African woman. Our Eve. It was in Africa that we became human.

The last 36 hours seem like a dream. Sydney. Dubai. Addis Ababa. Fleeting snapshots of the world that I'm not entirely convinced I actually stumbled upon. I'm impressed by both their sameness and their difference. People, it seems, are people wherever you go. Their faces tell different stories but they tell stories all the same. There is much all these places have in common. But despite all this, I'm struck by how massively Addis Ababa, the inspiration for Live Aid and the fledgling capital of Ethiopia, is removed from Dubai, that cauldron of cultures and currencies that seems to exist for no reason save commerce.

We walk along duty-free in Addis Ababa airport. Duty-free in all senses of the word. Gazing up at some scaffolding where various roof structures were being attended to, we saw two men working. No safety rails. No high-vis vests. No helmets, no OSH and, apparently, no problems. Another one, whose exact role wasn't clear, approached me. Like most of the Ethiopians at the airport he was smartly dressed, wearing a khaki green business suit and starched white shirt. 'You staying here?', he asks quizzically. 'No no, Entebbe, Entebbe, ' I gesticulate back, despite the fact he's talking in perfect English. He looks confused. 'Oh, oh, they might call for you soon', Not sure what that was about. We approach the gate with the guard eying us.

As I cautiously move for the gate, he stops us politely but directly. Apparently we can't go through that gate. Apparently we shouldn't be in the airport. In fact, apparently we shouldn't have got off the plane. He laughs self-consciously at our bemused look. 'Wait a minute, wait a minute' he offers in a thin Nigerian accent. He wanders off to discuss with a colleague. She looks at us an shakes her head. Peter, Andrew and I look at each other. This doesn't look promising, but none of us seem to too bothered. Not after our 30 hours of sleepless, whistlestop tour through the back and beyond. Even if we were stranded in Ethiopia, we were too tired to care..It was always going to be a trip of firsts. First long-haul flight. First visa on the new passport. First passing through customs. First experience of extreme poverty. I was losing my Africa virginity. I guess this would be the first exploitation by government officials. We step subtly aside to discuss how much greenback may need to be mobilised.

The trip down to Entebbe from Addis was a hairsbreadth compared to the jaunt from Auckland. With Lake Victoria as the backdrop, we make a bumpy landing in Entebbe.. The airport is a set from an 80s action flick.. The soil is red. The air is thick and pungent. We had, it appeared, arrived.

If you go back far enough, we're all African.. We climb down onto the tarmac and take our first lung- full of moist African air. It feels strangely like....coming home.